How you ever thought about what it would be like if one of your senses didn’t work? Or even if you couldn’t do something as common as reading? I wonder about what that would be like at times. Part of it, visual difficulties, stems from a project I worked on in college. That project instilled in me the fact that tens of thousands of people who can see well use the internet, and sites need to be designed with that in mind. That keeps me from putting a lot of emphasis on images in sites I work on, but that tends to be where it stops.

I have wondered from time to time what it would be like to lose one of my senses (not my marbles, I know where they are). My glasses are required for me to see anything farther than 5 inches away in detail. Without them, I can see blobs. I have pretty good hearing for the most part, even hearing things that aren’t there. As you may know, I like reading. One sense I do have lapses of is common sense. But even with all that rambling, I can’t even tell you that I have any real empathy for people who can’t do the things I’ve mentioned. It’s not that I don’t care, I just take being able to do those things for granted.

I have to wonder, what would I do differently, how would I be different, if I lost one of those abilities? I think it’s safe to say that most people don’t want to think about that; it’s depressing.

Would I treat other people with more respect? Would I understand their problems more since I could put myself in their shoes better? I want to think so, but that raises another question. Why don’t I do that anyway? I don’t think God is going to tell me not to treat others with respect, or even more love. Jesus encouraged that, strongly. So what is stopping me?

Looks like I’m more blind and deaf than I thought.